Letter to Karl Kautsky, July 11, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 11 July 1884


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1932
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN ZURICH

London, 11 July 1884

Dear Kautsky,

I trust Ede will get over his feverish attack; give him my regards and tell him that I, too, shall be drinking to his health.

To have let Auer have the Hamburg stuff is perfectly all right so far as I'm concerned. I suggested Bebel and Dietz merely because I had to tell the man to whom I intended to mention his name; needless to say this does not in any way restrict your freedom of action.

The matter of Dietz is becoming a bore. If he won't say either yes or no, then we can't go on waiting for him. My chief concern is that the thing[1] should come out and, secondly, that it should not be instantly confiscated en masse. I. e. two things that are to be had simultaneously only in Switzerland. Printing in Austria should be considered only in case of need; 1) it would mean fresh delays and negotiations and 2) the thing would be banned all the same, you need be under no illusions as to that[2] ; and 3) not only could it be banned in Austria, but also seized (remember the Viennese affair you told me about last autumn). So do get something positive done at last.

There must still be something peculiar going on in the Neue Zeit, otherwise that wise man Schippel would certainly not have been allowed to talk of a 'Rodbertusian-Marxian theory', or of things that 'one has come to recognise since Rodbertus'; and without editorial comment at that.[3] The Germans must have fallen low indeed if they have still not discovered that what Marx has in common with Rodbertus is nothing more than the application égalitaire de la théorie ricardienne[4] mentioned by Marx on p. 49 of the Poverty[5] and which has been a commonplace among English socialists since 1827! But that is very far from being surplus value as defined by Marx and applied by him to every aspect of the science of economics. Which is why the good English, and likewise Rodbertus, for all their borrowings from Ricardo, have made no headway at all in the matter of economics; the first advance in this field was made by Marx, who demolished all previous political economy.

Incidentally, if I am to tackle Rodbertus properly, I must have his piece of 1842,[6] Zur Erkenntniss unsrer Zustände, or whatever it is called. You quoted from it.[7] Could you let me have it for a day or two or, better still, buy it for me? To judge by some of the quotations, it would seem to be the best, because the first thing that he wrote, his later stuff being a mere rehash, hence increasingly flimsy.

Your

F.E.

  1. ↑ F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
  2. ↑ Cf. this volume, pp. 131-32.
  3. ↑ M. Schippel, 'H. M. Hyndman. The Historical Basis of Socialism in England, London, 1883', Die Neue Zeit, No. 7, 1884.
  4. ↑ equalitarian application of Ricardian theory
  5. ↑ See K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, present edition, Vol. 6, p. 138.
  6. ↑ 1841 in the original.
  7. ↑ K. Kautsky, 'Das Kapital von Rodbertus', Die Neue Zeit, Nos. 8-9, 1884, pp.343, 389.